Traditionally, a tennis player carries three tennis balls during play. Tennis clothing has, traditionally, been equipped with large pockets to permit the player to carry the balls in the pocket. Even with the best designs, however, these pockets are inconvenient, and often are difficult to reach to either insert or retrieve balls. There are a number of devices available which have sought to solve the problem, and each has provided a limited improvement in certain respects but all have fallen short of completely solving the problem. One such effort is exemplified by the device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,269,338, Burton F. Sichel, issued May 26, 1981. The Sichel patent discloses a ball holder in the form of a cage having a spine, a ring extending perpendicularly from the spine and retaining ends, the balls being held in the cage by elastic ball retaining members.
The present invention comprises an improvement over the prior art, providing a cage, having a spine, at least one ring, retainers, the cage being of generally resilient material, but with sufficient rigidity to form a cage which will hold two or more, typically three, tennis balls, and which is formed in combination with a diamond-shaped harness and a belt for retaining the cage snugly against the waist of the user, the spine being in a vertical orientation, the cage being sufficiently resilient to permit balls to be easily inserted into and removed from the cage.